


a mosaic of rainbow colors glow where the remains of lost worlds lay

by Graysonsginger



Category: Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Happy Ending, mentions of abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-07
Updated: 2019-12-07
Packaged: 2021-02-17 21:42:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21700207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Graysonsginger/pseuds/Graysonsginger
Summary: She’s been through so much, already scarred with gills and scales and nightmares. Her hair has already gone death white. Yet it’s now, when she’s found a cove of peace and home, that sparks of magic spring from her hands?i.e., After discovering she has magic, Dolphin struggles to reconcile her new abilities with her past traumas.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 14





	a mosaic of rainbow colors glow where the remains of lost worlds lay

**Author's Note:**

> Anon asked: Dolphin doesn’t realize she can use magic, she assumes that she’s just a meta human, then something makes her recall whatever trauma she had (“bad men do not feel bad when they lie”, whatever that means) and instead of crying a spark comes out of her hands and Kaldur has to calm her down before she hurts herself.

It’s not a moment of awe or wonder like some YA series protagonist discovering a world beyond their own for the first time. Dolphin has already lived the first five books of her life without magic. She’s been through so much, already scarred with gills and scales and nightmares. Her hair has already gone death white. Yet it’s now, when she’s found a cove of peace and home, that sparks of magic spring from her hands?

It’s not fair. It’s not right. As her new family explains that magic is a learned skill, a bitter taste coats her clenched teeth. They theorize that she must have subconsciously picked up a spell or two after moving to a magic-filled place like Shayeris, but all she can think is where was this magic when she needed it? 

She can’t think of the magic as part of herself. It’s a separate entity: an opponent, a betrayer. She has to conceptualize the magic as deciding on a whim to come to her rather than existing all along, because the alternative is too painful.

The lessons they get her with Headmaster La’gaan make things worse. Not because she’s bad at magic but because she turns out to be very, very good at it. Kaldur can tell it’s bothering her, and he tries to get her to open up, but no one, not him or his parents, not Garth or La’gaan, can relate to how she feels.

After a while though, Kaldur takes Dolphin to an art studio on the edge of Atlantis. The building is covered in stunning mosaics, the crafstman inside has an octopus head that is far from the scariest thing Dolpin has ever seen. His name is Topo, she learns. He is one of Kaldur’s oldest friends.

They spend the day making tiles together. Topo works and speaks gently. This is an old Atlantean tradition. With painting difficult underwater, they use colored clays to create pictures from mosaics. The process is not much different than on the surface, molding clay and firing it in a kiln. Though the kiln here is an underwater volcano. Dolphin had never done something like this in her previous life. It’s steady and comforting work.

Topo tells her mosaics are traditionally enchanted to move to tell stories, like animation. She asks if he’d always wanted to do this. The tentacles over his mouth seem ashamed as he explains he’d loved to do this in school, but there was a time where he stopped crafting all together.

He shows her part of a scar on his chest. A horrible word. Dolphin can tell he’s leaving out details as he tells her how it was carved into him and cursed to remain with no spell yet found to break it and fully heal him. Even the short version is awful enough to bring Dolphin to angry tears.

Of course, Kaldur had told Topo what he knew of Dolphin's past. Kidnapped, tortured, metagene activated, unable to return to the surface. But now she explains in full, to this octopus man who could understand, the terrible trauma of this evil magician torturing her, of the magic that seared her skin. She was fortunate to not be able to remember much of being a monster, but knowing that had happened at all makes her shudder still.

Topo listens, patiently, quietly, with none of the guilt she would’ve seen in Kaldur. He blames himself even though he was not at fault. And this thought, and Topo’s own story, makes Dolphin realize, it wasn’t magic’s fault either.

She had blamed it—her magic—for not protecting her from Klarion (or all the times before). But the blame really should go to the Purists, to the Light, to the Lord of Chaos, to the people who hurt for the fun of it. To the villains. When she voices the thought, Topo nods, and places his hand over her own, guiding it to the small mosaic they had just created.

He understood. He had felt the same. He had hated and feared magic after the incident, but had realized that magic was a tool. It could be used to hurt. Or it could be used to make something beautiful. And he finishes his speech with a quiet spell that lit up the tiles and made them dance around each other in a vision of a white-haired girl swimming with her family. The tile version of her smiles and she smiles back, tracing the lines with her webbed hand. Her eyes soak in every detail, staring awestruck and giddy into the image like it's an enchanted wardrobe or a flying broom.

She asks Topo to teach her that spell. On the surface, she never had the opportunity to learn art or magic. Now, here, she can do both.


End file.
